Sure you can sell a secret (by listing quietly with an agent), BUT if maximising  the value of your property is important, you may want to read on.

Here’s the thing, there really is no ‘off-market’, it’s really on-market, but without paid advertising.

It’s on-market because your agent will probably advertise it on their social media, put it in their newsletter, pop their open house sign out the front, take people through, and (fingers crossed) get you some offers.

You may have reasons for selling off-market. You might desire a quick sale. You might not want expenditure on advertising. These are valid reasons to have a property taken off your hands in the simplest way possible.

However, there is no guarantee of a fast sale when selling off market, because the buyer pool that your agent is presenting your property to will be incredibly small. Sure they’re promoting it to their database and random folks driving by on open days, but it’s all on an immensely smaller scale, which means it’ll take longer to find that right buyer.

This leads us to our next point about time on market, which is the biggest killer of price and something to be avoided at all costs. Although yours is a ‘quiet listing’, word always gets out, on social media, neighbours, other agents; and after a while if it fails to sell, people start to wonder, ‘What’s wrong with it?’ and/or ‘It must be over-priced.’

As we discussed above, one of the reasons for selling off-market is not wanting to spend money to advertise. There’s now a solution for this. At H & H we use a company called Easy Ad Pay, which allows you to make monthly payments on your ad expenditure over a six month period.

Consider also, what the market is like at the moment. A rising market might work in an off-market setting, a flat or falling market will not. But if you are selling in a rising market, why not make the most of it and present it to as many buyers as possible (by advertising it)?

Selling off-market means never knowing if you maximised your sold price.

Not a great idea in any market, and not a strategy we recommend.